“The only way to visit my elderly sister is by parking in Bridge Street car park and walking over the road, which we do as she needs regular visits as she is getting older," she said.

"I am 70 myself so even this is not easy for me. Now the only option that I will have is to use the car park opposite Debenhams and walk all the way round from there.

"There are 65 residents in Thames Edge [Court apartments] and this problem must apply to them all."

The borough council's regeneration manager, Heather Morgan, emailed Mrs Buchanan saying there were never any conditions that Bridge Street car park was kept free for residents or visitors to use when planning permission was granted for Thames Edge Court.

“As such, while no doubt welcomed, I’m afraid it could never be seen as a ‘given’ or indeed a permanent state of affairs”, she wrote.

“There are other car parks close by which people can still use, although I accept they may not be as convenient (especially for less mobile people).

“Before we embarked on selling Bridge Street car park, the council undertook a parking study to ensure we would not have a capacity problem if we disposed of this car park (or any other).

“That study confirmed that there was spare capacity, especially in Tothill and Elmsleigh multi-storey car parks. In effect, they could easily absorb the parking spaces ‘lost’ from Bridge Street.

“While in your case these are undoubtedly less convenient, from the council’s point of view it is the number of spaces which is key”.